Two Shades of Midnight
by Marziba Jai'Ruxul
Summary: Drizzt and his daughter face off in a battle, who shall win? Perhaps the famous weapons master will be defeated by his own flesh and blood?


Everything was a blur between the two expert warriors, as the silver lightning of scimitars orbiting their bodies collided in blazing fast parries. All the strikes screeched and wailed like one long, joined note, sparks showering like rain from the collisions of the blades. Lilithia panted softly, the sweat cascading over the white fuzz of her eyebrows, over her cheeks, to her tongue, where she could taste the salts mixing with the metallic taste of blood. Blood from a broken nose that slurped and burned the insides her nostrils with every breath.

Drizzt was agile wearing his magically enhanced bracers, but Lilithia could keep pace as he feigned left, right, right and left. Neither could work the other off of the offense, so in-sync were their maneuvers. Drizzt noted privately that it was as if he was fighting a mirror. Drizzt felt her strength in the hand-numbing blows her scimitars made on his, at times nearly sending his weapons soaring away from his grasp.

Time seemed to creep by, despite the flurry of their weapons.

Lilithia sensed Drizzt's distraction as she held her breath, the questioning look in his eyes and the slightest lowering of his weapons. He was growing weary, and now he was open. Faster than lightning, like a comet's tail, both of her scimitars connected with his solidly, locking them together before twisting them from his grip.

The blades clanged to the floor, leaving her holding nothing as she shoulder blocked him into the far wall. As nimble as an alley cat walking down the top of a chain link fence, Lilithia leaped onto his back and set her feet over his shoulders to pin him.

"Distractions." She mumbled. The sheer white of her teeth against her ebony skin made her a spooky, but intricately beautiful, wraith. At perhaps sixteen, quite young for a drow, Lilithia had bested all but her 'uncle' Jarlaxle with his nasty magical tricks. She had the body of a seductress, but looks were so often deceiving with her race, for though she was barely five feet tall, she was a force to be reckoned with. Drizzt knew well, but as her father, he could still make her struggle when he started to put the pressure on. There was no plausible way she could beat him without distractions or help.

Blacker than freshly mined coal, more supple than rabbit fur, a drow warrior of either gender was a ferociously deadly enemy to be avoided at all costs. Unless, of course, you're a drow.

"You win this time, but if that had been an actual fight, you would have died from hesitance…" Drizzt managed to grunt, trying to push her off of his back, to which she responded by grinding her heel into the nook of his spine, behind his head. Drizzt silently thought to himself to remind her of who she was standing on.

"You're tired, and so am I. We can discuss the details later. Let's go get something to eat, and perhaps procure a bath for ourselves. You look like the black tar in the deep mines." Lilithia said, leaping off of him and crouching to untangle the metal jigsaw that was their scimitars. With a curse, and some luck, she pried her weapons away from his, nursing a new, deep gash in her palm. Drizzt seemed concerned of the crimson creeping from her nose, or what had been but was now crusted over her upper lip.

As she looked away, turning her shoulder to him, Drizzt could see that most of her simple blouse had been shredded off of her shoulders, everything that which was sheltered by her thin, mithral chainmail. Her naturally, and wildly, curly hair hung damp to her shoulders like lilies with too much sunlight, darkening the lavender highlights she had recently dyed into her snow white locks.

"You dyed your hair?" Drizzt asked, stepping up after gathering his own weapons and replacing them in their sheaths. His hand coasted through the air to curl his fingers into one bunch of hair and gently tug it. "It's beautiful, Lilithia."

"Yes. Believe it or not, Regis helped!" She said, laughing and turning to smile at him. He saw his own violet eyes reflect in hers. He could see what he thought might be stars in a purple midnight sky, but in truth, they were flecks of gold and silver that speckled her lilac irises. Drizzt became lost, and he didn't notice when his daughter, for that was why Lilithia had the same color eyes, stepped closer and hugged him, her head finding the crook of his shoulder.

"Better next time." She whispered, listening as his heart beat, still faster than her own. Together, in thoughtful silence, the father and daughter pair walked out the wooden door of the private training room they had in their private, quiet cottage in the woods, their laughter mingling with the chirrups of the sparrows in the tall oaks outside.


End file.
